Rolling Stones to Trump: Don’t start us up again

The Rolling Stones apparently get no satisfaction from hearing Donald Trump play their songs during the presumptive Republican nominee’s rallies and events.

“The Rolling Stones have never given permission to the Trump campaign to use their songs and have requested that they cease all use immediately,” a representative for the band said in a statement issued Wednesday, as reported by the BBC, hours after Trump took to the stage at Trump Tower to the strains of “Start Me Up.”

Trump has also used the Stones standard “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” on multiple occasions at his rallies, as well as “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Brown Sugar.”

During an interview with Billboard last September, guitarist Keith Richards called Trump “refreshing,” adding that he has “cut through a lot of crap.”

At the same time, he remarked, “Well, can you imagine President Trump? The worst nightmare. But we can’t say that. Because it could happen. This is one of the wonders of this country. Who would’ve thought Ronald Reagan could be president?”

Trump’s pre-rally playlist has included the likes of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and Broadway hits from “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera,” both written by former Trump Tower resident Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The candidate’s playlist at one point also included Adele and Aerosmith, who both sent cease-and-desist letters by which Trump complied. After Trump played R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” the band’s frontman Michael Stipe — a Bernie Sanders supporter — wrote Trump asking him to stop using his music for his “moronic charade of a campaign.”

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Scott Craig

Moribund rock star – you think he would relish the use of some his old (and not so popular) songs in connection with an ascending presidential candidate. Next stop for Trump – presidency. Next stop for Jagger – mummification.